Last year I took on the challenge of the first-ever Local History Advent Calendar! For 24 days in a row, I presented random historical tidbits I’d collected over the previous year and presented them in the form of “treats” for my 2018 Local History Advent Calendar. This year, the “Heart of Mount Pleasant” was number 1 on Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Watch List for 2019. So I decided to choose Mount Pleasant as the theme for the Vanalogue Local History Advent Calendar for 2019. Each day you can “open” a new historical treat. Think of them as holiday cocktail party fodder – 24 facts about Mount Pleasant history that can be used as conversation starters at your next social event.
Jazz wasn’t the only genre of music that could be heard on the 2500 block of Watson Street (see LHAC Day 6). Punk rock also had its musical moment in this corner of Mount Pleasant. Before the current condo/retail building at Main & 10th Avenue was built, the ravine was still very open. A wooden catwalk going from Watson Street led people over the ravine to the backs of the buildings facing Main Street. In the photo (top) from 1958, you can see the ravine, the catwalk and the building (which looks like a pitch roofed house) that was the DOA & TT Racer practice space in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (Also visible in the photo is the Broadway Theatre and the 1895 Abray House.)
In the video clip below, DOA’s Joey “Shithead” Keithley reminisces about the time when DOA and TT Racer used this spot on the edge of the old Brewery Creek ravine as their practice space. Including how they would cross the “wooden walkway” to get to and from their old practice space, occasionally tossing an old beer can or two into the ravine along the way. [Ostensibly to be collected later and recycled.]
From Watson Street, on the south side of 1895 Abray House, one can still view a very thin slice of the Brewery Creek ravine between the two buildings.
The Brewery Creek ravine was featured in the video for DOA’s cover of Terry Jacks’ song “Where Evil Grows” (below); recorded in 1990 as a benefit single to fight the pollution and contamination of Howe Sound.
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